Day 67: Down the River

April 15, 2006

The trip to the Turtleland on this Easter morning started at 5AM from a bumpy
2-hour drive to Pavona, followed by another 2-and-a-half-hour boat ride down
the Rio Tortuguero. The waterbus stop is next to the guarded parking lot.
There is a grumpy old watchman at the entrance, a tiny snack bar and a restroom,
and this is pretty much all what Pavona consists of.

As we happen to be visiting Costa Rica during the dry season, the water level
in Rio Tortuguero is rather low. Waterbuses are struggling to squeeze through
narrow sharp turns, and it is not unusual to see a captain jumping out of
the boat to push his vessel through a shallow pass. Sometimes the boats get
stuck on shallow patches or in narrow passes so helplessly that all the passengers
have to disembark in the middle of the river. This is what happened in our
case :) In fact, the engine of our waterbus broke down and we just hung out
in the middle of Rio Tortuguero until about half an hour later a rescue boat
arrived. Although slightly extended, the journey down the river was indeed
spectacular.

Bonus Story. No more incidents for us on this boat ride, but we have
one more informative narrative about a trip to Tortuguero. About a month later
in Panama we met an Israeli traveler who told us about his adventures on the
Rio Tortuguero waterbus.
It is quite common to see bigger boats consolidating passengers en route or
taking onboard more people than the capacity of the boat officially allows.
The Israeli fellow happened to be on one of such boats. After passing through
the inspection point, his waterbus picked up an additional group of passengers,
became overloaded and shortly turned over right in the middle of the river
sending all the passengers and their belongings to the bottom of Rio Tortuguero.
This happened to occur at a pretty deep spot, and some children nearly drowned.
All the cameras, laptops, MP3 players and people's documents soaked through,
and most of the electronic devices became damaged beyond repair. The travel
agency, which had advertised that their boat tickets always included insurance,
after a long debate agreed to refund the ticket cost, $10.
Luckily, the waterbus topic came out of the conversation, and we could cheer
up the poor guy a little by sharing with him our pictures from Tortuguero.
The moral of the story - use waterproof bags for all trips involving transfers
by water!!! Even if you and your luggage get lucky and don't soak through,
the chances to get wet to some extent are high - after all, you are on a small
boat with splashing water all around you!

Back to Tortuguero, which turns out to be an attractive green village with
a tiny wharf, a miniature park and plenty of hotels and restaurants. The village
is all surrounded by water: the Caribbean Sea from the east and the Rio Tortuguero
from the west. The Tortuguero National Park territory starts right behind
the village and can only be accessed by water. There are lots of agencies
offering guided early morning wildlife watching boat tours, or you can rent
a paddle canoe or a kayak and go to see the park on your own. After our independent
bird watching expedition in Monteverde, we decided this time we would try
to go with a guide :)

To our greatest disappointment, the news about the nesting turtles is not
good at all - the turtles are late! They are supposed to be laying eggs at
full speed by now, but this year they have not yet started. One of the park
rangers suggested we took a moonlight walk on the beach - several days ago
a few turtles have been spotted, so we might get lucky - and so we did. The
walk was very nice, yet very turtleless :)

Tip #1: Upon arrival to Cariari you will most likely be offered "the
best deal": a combo ticket for an outrageous $20, which includes a one-way
bus & boat ride from Cariari to Tortuguero. Try shopping around until
you get offered an identical package for half the price. $20 for a round-trip
bus+boat ticket would be closer to reasonable. There are several hotels in
Cariari, which should guard your car for a small amount of money (Hotel Mister
Bailey has a spacious gated parking lot). Alternatively, you can drive your
own car to Pavona and leave it in the overpriced parking lot ($10/day). You
are not very unlikely to negotiate any discount with the old cranky guard,
as he knows you have no better choice.

In case you end up with your own car in Pavona, at least try to get a boat
ticket at the locals' price, which is $3 one-way. Use your best acting ability
and pretend it is not your first time on this waterbus and you know the real
price. If that does not help, state out loudly that you know they are ripping
the tourists off. They will probably quickly let you pass for $3 just to shut
you up before other tourists overhear your conversation.

Tip #2: Tourist rip offs is a rather common practice in Costa Rica.
Often times the vendors try to charge the visitors significantly more than
the locals. The best way to find out the true price is to ask "neutral"
Costa Ricans.
We had no similar problems in other Central American countries.